This present invention relates to peripheral security and more specifically to techniques for determining movement of a device away from a preferred location.
Devices may move or be moved a distance away from a preferred location to some other location. Movement may be due to any of a variety of reasons, innocent or otherwise. For example, a device may be moved to another location to replace a device that has failed. As another example, a device may be carelessly relocated, then forgotten, lost or misplaced. As yet another example, a device may be stolen or temporarily removed by a fraudster.
One example device is a peripheral, such as a payment peripheral. A typical payment terminal may include a magnetic stripe reader for reading credit and debit cards. The payment terminal may also include a keypad for entering personal identification numbers (PINs).
Fraudsters often attempt to modify these devices in order to capture credit numbers and PINs. In some venues, the fraudsters remove the payment terminals, alter them to include card skimmers and key loggers, and then return or deploy them in venues where proprietors and customers are unaware that the payment terminals have been altered.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide techniques for determining movement of devices away from a preferred location, such as payment terminals.